> I think it's amazing that I'm living through such a historic moment. I'm sixteen years old. A week and a half ago the most important thing on my mind was whether I had money to buy a quesadilla for lunch. Things have certainly changed. My God, I'm living in history! The entire world around me is right at the beginning of some very drastic change, and I'm going to see it all. This time, this event, this period in time will be etched into history books forever, and I am living through it. That concept is profoundly staggering to me. I've never been through anything like this before. I have not lived through any historically significant period in American history, or at least not through any period I can remember (for example, I didn't know about the Gulf War for years after the fact). I did not experience the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the Great Depression, either World War, or the Westward Expansion. In a sense, this whole situation is kind of exciting to me. I will be part of history. I doubt I'll be in any history books or that someday a teacher will talk about me to a class, but I will be a part of this era, and I will have been a part of it from the beginning. I feel kind of special. Out of hundreds of millions - possibly even a billion - of Americans who have existed over the past centuries, I will be one of the relatively few people who will be here in this hour. That absolutely astounds me. Someday, when I'm old and gray, I'll be telling my grandkids about the thoughts and feelings and experiences I'm having right now. I will be a piece, however small, of this age in America. That makes me feel proud.
>
> -Eric Sleator
> Thu 20 Sep A.D. 2001

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I wish I had thought of it that way when I was 16. I was born in the Great Depression, clearly remember Pearl Harbor, lived through World War II, and served in the military between Korea and Vietnam. I was fortunate to do that between wars. (Everybody had to go back then, but few of them hated it the way I did.) People landing on the moon, the Kennedy assasinations, and the Gulf War seem like yesterday to me. I endured poverty, hitchhiked thousands of miles, worked my way through college and reared four children(my wife helped). Looking back at it all, I know that I was here during some of the most exciting times in the history of people. I went from the time of biplanes that flew at 85 or 90 miles per hour to the days of the Space Shuttle. I went from the time of dirt roads and brick streets to the time of Interstates and freeways. At 68, I'm looking for another 30 years so I can say that I outlasted my grandfather who lived to be 97. I wonder what will happen in those next three decades.
Howard